Massive meetings of the minds. Pageants for well-heeled history makers. Solidifications of — and protests against — party platforms. The Oscars, but for geeks. A total shitshow.
However one thinks the two major political parties’ conventions will turn out later this month, the wild political ride of the past year on both sides of the aisle seems to guarantee these events will be like none before.
“For people in politics, I think the national conventions are a cross between a rock concert and an awards show,” said Ramsay McLauchlan, a Democratic delegate from Pinellas. “It’s a who’s who of political folks around the country that get together, and I find it a lot of fun.”
It was a short four years ago that Tampa was home to the Republican National Convention. It was, lively, sure, but tightly controlled and largely took place in the shadow of a militarized police force.
With the Tampa RNC a relatively recent memory, a few dozen Tampa Bay emissaries (OK, delegates, protesters and media members including yours truly) will embark northward to be in the middle of the madness — or, sit in an air-conditioned arena while all hell breaks loose in the streets outside.
First, it will be Cleveland for the RNC, much of which takes place at Quicken Loans Arena.
Then comes Philadelphia, where the Democratic National Convention convenes at the Wells Fargo Center.
Much of the action will take place outside by way of protests and marches. In Cleveland, there’s particular concern over clashes between Donald Trump supporters, including some white supremacist groups, and anti-Trump protesters on the left.
In Philadelphia, there’s bound to be some, er, dialogue between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, though it doesn’t at this point seem as likely to get violent.
But if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that we should never have all that much faith in our expectations.
First up: The RNC
Mike Mikurak is taking a few days off from his run for Pinellas County Commission against Democratic incumbent Charlie Justice to serve as an alternate delegate for Florida’s 14th Congressional District. He’s one of six Republicans from the district to attend (each district gets three delegates and three alternates).
“I think it’s a very important process right now, and a very important time in the history of the West and of our community,” he said. “And so I am very interested in how this process will work out.”
And it’s not exactly clear how it will just yet.
Trump is, of course, the presumptive nominee, and the roster of speakers includes members of his family as well as Ben Carson. Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, both Trump supporters, are also among celebrities being floated as possible speakers.
Yet, even though Trump has the delegates and the support to carry on through November, the GOP’s anti-Trump faction persists, rearing its head at every misguided utterance or tone-deaf tweet by the billionaire real estate magnate. Polling currently suggests it’d be tough for him to beat Clinton in November, while someone like Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney would do well against her.
Mikurak and his colleagues will all have to vote for Trump on the first three ballots they cast, but they can vote for another candidate on subsequent ballots. He did not say whether he would switch his vote after the third ballot, or if he’d stick with Trump, who a year ago was one of nearly 20 Republicans vying for the nomination, all of whom Mikurak said he likes.
“I supported all of them, actually. I wasn’t specifically committed. I liked Jeb Bush in the beginning. I liked Marco Rubio and others as they went down the line. Donald Trump did what he needed to do to gain the populist vote, and it appears that he’s done that,” he said. “Our delegates will do what they need to do, what’s right.”
Outside the arena, swarms of protesters will likely gather. Several marches are slated to take place through downtown Cleveland, and some activists are concerned that the proximity to one another of groups with starkly different views may lead to confrontation and possibly violence. That the city is required to allow legal gun owners to carry their weapons in the area could add to the tension.
PROTESTS 2012: Marchers reached the edge of the security zone during the RNC.
Joeff Davis
Longtime Tampa Bay area social justice advocate Reverend Bruce Wright hopes to document the event for his Revolutionary Road Radio Show, which airs on 1340 AM (and is podcasted and featured on YouTube).
He is bringing up a dozen or so activists to join protests at both conventions against what he sees as policies that ignore the plight of poor and low-income Americans.
“We think it’s important to go up there because, first of all, the voices of the poor and the homeless and unemployed need to be heard at both conventions. You’re not hearing a lot of talk about poverty,” he said. “We think it’s important that… it’s not just the usual suspects, but that it’s actually people impacted by the policies that both parties enact that generally are not helpful to poor folks.”
Wright said he wants to be able to convey what’s going on outside on his radio show, and that he expects things to be much more lively at both conventions this year than they were at either in 2012.
“It’s very clear that both conventions, even with the DNC in Philly, that there’s going to be large numbers of protesters, that there’s going to be large numbers of people disenchanted and disenfranchised and angered at the two-party system and its kind of beholden-ness to corporate interests and big money.”
The event wraps up Thursday, July 21, with a speech by the nominee.
On to the DNC
Depending on whom you ask, Philadelphia will be the site at which the first female major presidential candidate is nominated, the site at which supporters of Bernie Sanders loudly voice their opposition to Clinton while trying to flip her un-pledged delegates, or something in between.
Wright said activists are planning on setting up a “poor people’s encampment” called Clintonville.
McLauchlan, a Clinton supporter, said he’s looking forward to an unprecedented moment.
“For me personally, it will be very exciting to see her get the nomination,” he said. “I think it’s a historic year, and I certainly hope she will be the first woman elected president.”
It’s unclear what Sanders will do ahead of the convention — whether he’ll endorse Clinton or keep his campaign going — but McLauchlan said he expects that Democrats will focus on developing the platform rather than aggravating the differences that have bitterly divided the party’s progressives and moderates over the past year.
“Developing the platform, which is really the biggest issue of contention at this point, is an ongoing process,” he said. “I think that between now and when the convention starts, most of the issues with the platform will be worked out… and I think when that point is reached, Senator Sanders will be even more publicly supportive of Hillary Clinton than he is currently.”
It’s unclear what his supporters are going to do.
There’s talk of a walkout among Sanders delegates if they don’t get their way — not to mention the threat of a rather creative form of protest on the floor involving the consumption of legumes hours beforehand.
Mike Fox, a Sanders delegate and the national fundraising and phone-banking coordinator for the group Progressive Democrats of America, had no comment about such protests, other than saying it’s not exactly wise to to threaten such actions within the arena.
“When you get that many passionate people into a room, some may choose to express themselves in a peaceful way that some people may say is… unruly or aggressive or something along those lines,” he said. “Any delegate who talks in those kinds of terms before the convention are just asking themselves to be de-credentialed.”
Instead, he said, he wants to focus on something constructive: voting. Then, if the Sanders camp doesn’t manage to flip the unpledged delegates, they’ll work on fine-tuning the party platform.
“To me, it’s finishing the entire process, first and foremost,” he said. “What the media has been very good at up to this point is not recognizing that nobody is the nominee yet. The nominee is determined when all of the delegates cast their ballots, period. So this is obviously kind of the icing on the cupcake.”
And unlike conventions in years past, which have tended to be insular and somewhat sanitized, an unprecedented volume of communication channels can help connect the demonstrators outside with the delegates inside as they develop their platform — which can help ease tensions.
“So in a perfect world, where you have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets peacefully in Philadelphia… as we’re talking about Fight for 15 on the floor inside, we can connect to the folks outside who are, each and every one of them, different groups with different issues, but our goal is and our hope is that they will all show solidarity with that issue at that moment,” Fox said.
The Democratic National Convention takes place from July 25-28.
Follow CL’s coverage of the conventions on Twitter at @cl_tampa. While you’re at it, follow Kate Bradshaw at @kbradshawcl.
This article appears in Jul 7-14, 2016.